Images of North Korea's latest missile launch reveal a big problem for the US

Analysis of North Korea's latest missile launch reveals
a bigger, better rocket that has been domestically
built.

The US remains determined to stop North Korea from
building a credible nuclear force, but it's looking less likely
it will be able to do so diplomatically.

The US ambassador to the UN said the launch took the US
"closer to war," but experts say the US may just have to accept
North Korea as a nuclear state.

The results are in from North Korea's latest missile test, and it
looks as if the country's weapons program is advancing despite
the US's best efforts.

Photos released by North Korean media show the launch process as
supervised by the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, and reveal a new
missile, the Hwasong-15, that is unlike anything previously seen
from the nation.

"This is a very big missile," Michael Duitsman, a researcher at
the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, tweeted.
"And I don't mean 'Big for North Korea.' Only a few countries can
produce missiles of this size, and North Korea just joined the
club."

Tal Inbar, the head of the space research center at the Fisher
Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, observed
on Twitter that the reentry vehicle, or the tip of the
missile that must return down to earth, was "HUGE."

But Mike Elleman, a leading missile expert, wrote on 38 North, a
website for North Korea analysis, that despite the missile's size
it still probably couldn't send a heavy nuclear warhead as far as
the US's east coast.

According to Elleman, when North Korea demonstrated the
8,000-mile range of the Hwasong-15 and its other long-range
missiles, they "likely carried very small payloads." Elleman
estimates that the missiles would struggle even to reach the US's
west coast with a reasonably size nuclear warhead aboard.

What this means for the US

Nikki
Haley, the US ambassador to the United
Nations.Thomson
Reuters

In comparison with the other ICBM launches from North Korea, the
response from President Donald Trump to the most recent one has
been muted, and perhaps for good reason.

As Paul Bracken, a professor of political science at Yale,
told Business Insider, Trump has "been reasonably effective"
in isolating North Korea and rallying support for sanctions
internationally.

But North Korea just showed a domestically made missile and
missile launcher. It showed a capacity to improve upon its
existing designs and to design new missiles independently.

In short, it showed that even with the Trump administration's
"maximum pressure" policy, aircraft carriers nearby, and US jets
buzzing around, it seems on track to build a credible nuclear
weapon.

"We know they were building to this. They got it no matter how
badly we wanted to stop them. Our options to stop them are still
awful," Robert Kelly, an associate professor of political science
at Pusan National University in South Korea,
told the Los Angeles Times. "We are stuck. We have to adapt
to North Korea as a nuclear power, and we will actually."

The US has repeatedly said that it will not accept North Korea as
a nuclear power and that it will consider military intervention
to stop it.

The US's ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, on Wednesday said
that the US was not seeking war with North Korea but that the
latest launch "brings us closer to war." While Haley remarked
that the "North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed" in such
a war, she neglected to mention the damage that South Korea, and
possibly the US, could also face from a North Korean nuclear
attack.